Influence of salinity on the localization and expression of the CFTR chloride channel in the ionocytes of juvenile Dicentrarchus labrax exposed to seawater and freshwater.

The European sea-bass, Dicentrarchus labrax is a euryhaline teleost whose high osmoregulatory abilities allow sea-lagoon migrations. In order to investigate the mechanism underlying the acclimation of juvenile fish to salinity, CFTR was studied in long-term (6 months) freshwater (FW)- and seawater (SW)-exposed fish, and in short-term (from day 0 to day 30) FW-exposed fish. Cellular and molecular approaches were combined to determine the functions of CFTR in the gills, posterior intestine and kidney. In the kidney, the expression of CFTR transcripts and protein is low. After a direct transfer from SW to FW, the CFTR mRNA is down-regulated in the gills within 1 day, followed by a protein decrease over 7 days. In the posterior intestine, first there is a protein decrease within one day and secondly at the mRNA level in 14 days. While in the gills the regulation is transcriptional, in the posterior intestine, there is first a post-transcriptional regulation followed by a transcriptional regulation after 14 days in FW. Over a long-term exposure, there is a transcriptional regulation in both organs. Coupled to other ion transports, CFTR contributes to ion regulation and thus to the adaptation of the European sea-bass to sea-lagoon transitions.